July 31 (Bloomberg) -- German retail sales unexpectedly
declined for a third month in June amid uncertainty about the
consequences of Europe’s debt crisis.

Sales, adjusted for inflation and seasonal swings, fell 0.1
percent from May, when they slipped 0.3 percent, the Federal
Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said today. That’s the longest
stretch of declines since the end of 2007, when they dropped
four consecutive months. Economists had forecast a gain of 0.5
percent, the median of 23 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey
shows. Sales rose 2.9 percent from a year ago.

“Wages are rising strongly and the labor market is stable
but we’re not seeing much of those stimulating effects yet,”
Andreas Scheuerle, an economist at Dekabank in Frankfurt, said
before today’s report. “It’s about time for retail sales to
pick up. I don’t expect them to surge in coming months but we
should see moderate growth rates in the next two quarters.”

While confidence among entrepreneurs and investors declined
in July as the sovereign debt crisis intensified, consumer
sentiment will increase to the highest level in five months in
August, according to market research company GfK SE. The
Bundesbank last month raised its 2012 growth forecast to 1
percent from 0.6 percent, citing domestic consumption.

Negotiated wages increased 2.2 percent in April from a year
earlier, the statistics office said yesterday. That’s the
strongest gain since January 2010.

Inflation remained at 2 percent in July, and the country’s
jobless rate probably held at 6.8 percent from June, according
to the median of 33 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. The
Labor Agency will release that report at 9:55 a.m. in Nuremberg
today.